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THE DOUBTS AND DIFFICULTIES OF 
NATIONAL UNITY. 



ADDRESS 



THE ALUMNI SOCIETY 



University of Georgia, 



JUNE i8th, 1895. 



By MARION J. VERDERY, 

OF NEW YORK. 



AUGUSTA, GA. 

Chronicle Job Printing Company. 

1895. 



LIBRARY OF CONGFtESS^ 

FEB231922 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Univeesity of Georgia. 

Athens, June 20th, 189o. 

Kon. M. J. Verdery, 

My Dear Sir: — It gives me pleasure to carry out my instructions 
as Secretary of the Alumni Society of the University of Georgia in 
transmitting to you the following resolution of thanks, passed unani, 
mously by the Society in recognition of your kindness to them on June 
18th last: 

Besolved, That the thanks of this Society are due, and are hereby 
warmly tendered to Hon. Marion J. Yerdery, of Xew York, for the 
admirable address to which we have just listened, and that the Secre- 
tary of the Society be instructed to request a copy of the same for pub- 
lication. 

This resolution was passed at the meeting of the Alumni Society 
immediately succeeding the address; and in behalf of the Society I trust 
that you will kindly furnish me with a copy for publicktion. 

Yery respectfully, ; 

^ DAVID C: BAEROW, Jr. 

• ■_"/ -.. • ' ..- V .^■. • Secretary. 



Athens, Ga., June 20th, 1895. 

Prof . David C. Barrow, Jr. ^ Secretary Alumni Society, University of 

Georgia, Athens, Ga. 

My Dear Sir: — Your courteous note of this date, communicating 
to me the flattering resolution adopted by the Alumni Society, and 
requesting, in accordance with the resolution, a copy of my address^ 
delivered before the Society on the 18th instant, is received. 

In compliance with the request, I send you the manuscript here- 
with and with grateful acknowledgments to the Society and to you, I 
remain 

Yours respetfully, 

M. J. YERDERY. 



^iDDr^EisQ. 



Mr. President and Members of the Ahirnni Society: 

Ladies and Gentlemen: — I know this to be a proper 
form of salutation, but it is not altogether to my liking. I 
should very much prefer to adopt the good old-fashioned 
Methodist formula, and say, dearly beloved brethren and 
sisters. As a matter of fact I leally do feel almost akin to 
every bcdy in this audience, but however I might address 
you, my lips would be false to my heart if with my first 
breath I did not say, thank you. I am not only grateful 
for the honor you have done me in inviting me to deliver 
this address, but I am grateful because your invitation has 
called me once again back to Georgia. I tell you, my 
friends, until a thousand miles have stretched between you 
and the scenes of your childhood, your soul can never give 
full tone to the echo of that dear old song. 

Take me back to the place where I first saw the light, 

To the sweet sunny South take me home, 
Where the mocking bird sang me to rest every night, 

Ah! why was I tempted to roam?" 

I am determined not to be hampered on this occasion 
by any lurking consciousness of relative un worthiness, but, 
on the contrary, have concluded to appropriate Judge Bleck- 
ley's theory, who under similar circumstances, remarked 
that "whenever he had an honor done him, the less worthy 
of it he felt, the keener was his enjoyment in accepting it." 
The paramount thought with me at this moment is the 
precious one that I am here, — here in Georgia, — here in 
Athens, — here on the blessed old Campus, — here in the 
embrace of friendly love that has outlasted the years, and 



4 

with a fervent God-bless you welling up in my heart, I say 
again, thank you. 

It has been more than a quarter of a century since I 
stood on this platform, and yet the scenes of that day are as 
fresh to me as if they had been enacted yesterday. My 
fancy is a wing, flying back through the shadowy yester- 
days of many years; my mind is a medley of memories 
chiming in sweetest harmony with the music of long ago; 
my eyes are shut, and yet I see faces that will never fade 
from the picture gallery of my heart; my ears are stopped, 
but oh how plainly I hear the happy voices of the boys and 
girls who were the boon companions of my College days. 
Blessed days, so long gone that the girls of then are the 
mothers of now, and the boys have come to wear the silvei 
crowns of middle age. And yet, how near it all seems. 
Why, the echo of that whirlwind of applause which followed 
Albert Cox's memorable speech delivered from this stage 
nearly thirty years ago rings in my ears at this moment, 
and the exquisite imagery of blessed Grady's "Castles in 
Air" is as beautiful to mind today as it was when I heard 
him speak the prose poem. 

Oh, memory, priceless gift of God, storehouse for treas- 
ures that can be kept nowhere else; yea, storehouse like 
Heaven itself, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, 
and where thieves do not break through and steal;" thy 
doors are without locks, and yet, whispers of tenderness, 
snatches of song, dreams of love, pictures of beauty and 
even the perfume of flowers are stored there in safety 
forever. You know when Ann of Austria confessed her love 
to the Duke of Buckingham, his Grace dropped a jewel by 
the wayside, saying, that he wanted some foot-traveler to 
find the gem, and thereby be made glad at the place where 
he had found his greatest joy. 

I never had occasion to drop any jewel anywhere in 
Athens for precisely the same reason that the Duke of 



Buckingham flung his down in the public road, but if I had 
dropped a gem at every spot where I told some Ann of 
Athens what I thought of her, Cobbham would have been 
paved like a street of the New Jerusalem, and it would pay 
today to rake any front yard in Athens and sift the dirt for 
precious stones. 

But I am talking a long way off from my subject, and 
this is not an occasion to be wholly given over to reminis- 
cences. When I was striving to determine what my subject 
should be, I wrote to my very dear friend, W. W. Thomas, 
and asked him what I should talk about; he replied prompt- 
ly, saying that he didn't care at all what I talked about, but 
that there were just two things which I must not do, — first, 
I must not speak too long, and secondly, I must not make a 
"speech under the third head." This was his explanation 
of a "speech under the third head." He said several years 
ago a gentleman delivered an address here, and the day 
after, when Governor Brown and Dr. H. V. M. Miller and 
Hon. Nat. Hammond were going back to Atlanta together, 
Dr. Miller asked Governor Brown what he thought of the 
address the day before. The Governor replied that he 
thought it was a speech under the third head; then they 
both laughed, but Colonel Hammond was not in the joke, 
and asked to be enlightened. Dr. Miller said that he and 
Governor Brown were once up near Tallulah Falls and went 
to hear an old hardshell Baptist minister, who took his text 
from St. Paul and proceeded with the sermon in this 
fashion: "Dearly beloved, I shall divide my sermon into 
three heads; under the first head I shall endeavor to show 
you what St. Paul did not mean. Under the second head I 
shall endeavor to show you what St. Paul did mean, and 
under the third head, I shall make a few general remarks 
on a line which I do not think St. Paul understood and 
which I know I do not. 

I have determined to talk to you upon "The Doubts 
^nd DifHiculties of National Unity," 



The subject naturally falls into an analysis something 
like this. Are there such doubts and are there such diffi- 
culties; and if so, are the former removable and the latter 
surmountable or not? No one can deny the existence of 
the doubts. They crop out in all parts of the country 
spasmodically in spiteful sayings and captious conduct, 
and confronted by numerous signs of distrust and discord, 
we cannot escape the question — is this county one country 
or not; if it is not, we should surely put a stop to all these 
after-dinner exuberances of feeling; we cannot be one 
country at a night feast, and widely separated in our 
feelings when the morning comes. But, on the other hand, 
if this is not one country and we are not one people, what 
mean the matchless messages of peace which have been 
borne North by Georgia's incomparable triumvirate, Grady, 
Gordon and Graves? If we are not one people in spirit and 
in sympathy, let Graves get no more into the very fastnesses 
of New England and pour out in matchless eloquence the 
story of complete reconciliation and Americanism, which 
the people of the South feel. If we are not one people, let 
us call home our superbest hero of the lost cause, John B. 
Gordon; call him home, I say, and bid him retract the 
generous tributes which I have repeatedly heard him pay 
to "the men who wore the blue," and bid him no more 
wrap himself in the stars and stripes in sign of his whole- 
souled loyalty, and claim at the same time that this dramatic 
act illustrates the hearts of his people. If we are not one 
people, let us stop our ears to the sweet echo of all the 
beautiful doctrines that were preached by the immortal 
Grady, who "died loving the nation into peace." 

Secondly the difficulties of National Unity are undenia- 
bly great. The very fundamental idea of unity necessarily 
involves the thought of possible separation, and since 
throughout the universe it seems easier for things to drift 
apart than to pull together the difficulties of National Unity 
are multiform and complex, 



In human nature the dominant principle is individual- 
ism or egoism — selfishness in other words. It is the most 
unconquerable passion in the world; there is nothing it will 
not do. It murders, it steals, it persecutes enemies, it 
betrays friends, it abuses charity and maligns virtue. It 
exiled Adam and Eve, it has been the pitfalls of kings, and 
the ruin of emperors. It cheats the devil and robs God. 
It spreads like pestilence, rendering families discordant, 
communities contentious and even the autonomy of nations 
uncertain. The splendor and magnificence of ancient 
Rome would be unmarred to day but for the selfish tyranny 
of Nero. The serpentine Seine, threading its way through 
the incomparable French capital, would never have run red 
with blood, and the awful horrors of the French Revolution 
would never have blotted the pages of human history, if 
National Unity had not been destroyed by political passion 
and selfish greed for personal gain. And our own blessed 
country would not, like the vail of the temple, have been 
rent in twain but for the bitterness of disagreement between 
the States, which, after all, in its last analysis, was a 
contention for the maintenance of selfish ends. And the 
temporary disruption of the States was so violent, and the 
calamitous cost thereof so inestimable, and the terrible 
consequences so lasting, that even at this late day — thirty 
years after the pipe of peace at Appomattox — it is still a 
question if the breach is thoroughly healed. 

Now, it does seem to me, the sooner that question is 
settled by every man and woman of the land, the better. 
Let us settle it conscientiously and completely. It is a 
question for each separate individual. You cannot determine 
it for me, nor I for you. Is this an indissoluble nation or 
not? Is this vast expanse, from where the morning sun 
first kisses the hills of the East to where, when the day 
is gone, he goes down through the golden gate of the West, 
and from where the perpetual snows turban th^ mountain 



8 

peaks of the far North down to the distant South where 
bridal wreaths of orange blossoms are in perpetual bloom ; 
is this boundless estate only a sectionalized territory, or is 
it more than all else, — is it "America, the land of the free 
and the home of the brave?" 

If we are not a unified people, bound together by all 
the possibilities of a common destiny and united by all the 
ties of kindred ambition, and sacredly joined in the name of 
true patriotism, then, for honor and truth's sake, let us quit 
all insincere speechmaking on special occasians. 

I pray you will not misunderstand me. I do not charge 
the people of the South with any greater responsibility for 
the lack of National Unity than attaches to those of other 
parts of the country, but that there is lack of such unity 
is a fact beyond contradiction. It evidences itself up North, 
when some irresponsible scribbler or blatant blatherskite 
repudiates all professions of union and waves the bloody 
shirt. It crops out in fanatical and oftentimes hypocritical 
views in that section on the negro question. It shows itself 
in unmistakable jealousy of the South's power in national 
politics and vastness of her natural resources ; but, then, 
the fault is not all there, the South in spirit and in speech 
is not altogether without sin against that consummation 
devoutly to be wished — a perfect National Unity. 

We do not always seem to be dominated by that funda- 
mental principle of patriotism, "the greatest good for the 
greatest number," and until we all, of every section, lift 
ourselves to that exalted plane of true citizenship, this union 
will only be a confederation of States — "distinct like the 
billows, but, alas ! not one like the sea." 

I know the difficulties in the way of an ideal union are 
great. The very vastness of our domain, variety of climate, 
diversity of occupation, the unlikeness of customs, and 
difference of education, all these conspire to create conflict 
of interest and drive asunder, rather than bind us together. 



The solid South, aside from reverence for hallowed mem- 
ories and sacred traditions, has stood unbroken so long, cnly 
because of the inherent strength that there is in unified local 
interests. But the days of the solid South are numbered. 
The South has been solid in opposition to the despicable 
and unpatriotic policy of that political faction which has 
prostituted itself in a thousand ways while masquerading in 
the name of the Republican party, and that faction was 
violently rebuked when the force bill was killed. 

The future politics of this country are bound to revolve 
around great economic questions, and not to be warped by 
bitter memories and lingering prejudices. National achieve' 
ment is never accomplished along the line of passion and 
prejudice. Great living issues are upon us, and as they 
press the South will divide, and the North, and the East, 
and the West will divide ; this will not be sectional division, 
but division within the sections ; every man's judgment 
leading him, in the light of his own intelligence, to con- 
scientious convictions. Sooner or later what we have been 
calling the Democratic and Republican parties will be 
swallowed up in the birth of new parties. In this way the 
best intelligence all over the land will be enlisted under one 
banner, and the motto on that banner will be "For the Sake 
of America." If this be not so, and the South is destined 
to be forever solid, what means the recent contest over the 
Governorship of Tennessee ? Why is North Carolina no 
longer a certain quantity in the solidity ? And how dare 
any man, and especially one with such ancestry as Thomas 
W. Sedden, the son of a member of Mr. Davis' last Cabinet, 
join an element in Alabama (the very cradle of Confederacy), 
which element swears to renounce Democracy rather than 
see the material interests of that State suffer. What a con- 
firmation of Hancock's unhappy declaration, that the tariff 
was a local issue. 

Puring the next Presidential campaign the questions 



10 

that will press hardest on every man for personal solution 
will not be whether he shall vote for a Republican or a 
Democrat, but whether he believes in protection or free 
trade, and what is the wisest and best solution of the cur- 
rency question. 

You must realize, my dear people, that old issues are 
dead — not sentiments and traditions — far be it from me to 
suggest that the least of them should suffer the slightest 
forgetfulness. I would hold every tradition of this blessed 
Southland as precious as a sacred heritage, and I would rear 
our children in a knowledge of those happy days which 
made the old South what she was, and keep all those mem- 
ories as sacred history of a civilization and social organism 
that has never had any parallel in the record of peoples. 
But as Ben Hill once said, "There was a South of secession 
and slavery; that South is gone. There is a South of 
energy, progress and power, which it behooves all her sons 
to guard jealously and build up triumphantly." 

We must take hold of the issues that exist to-day. 
If the Southern people are to make themselves an influ- 
ential factor in shaping the destiny of this great nation, 
they must prove themselves sound in political philosophy, 
wise in the science of economics and broad national 
policy. In the name of God let me beg you to steer 
clear of all isms! Stop your ears to the preaching of 
unwise leaders, who have political ambitions to serve 
and not patriotic purposes to promote. There are no 
men on the face of the earth, taken as a class, with 
clearer ideas of justice, fuller appreciation of wise legisla- 
tion or better grounded in the principles of real statesman- 
ship, than the men of the South, and yet you championed 
the "Income Tax." Why could you not see that one of its 
provisions alone was fatal to it. By what process of reason- 
ing could you justify putting a .|4,000 limit on incomes that 
were not to be taxed? Why was it not just as fair to make 



11 

that limit $40,000. If you had insisted that all incomes 
(be they ever so infinitesimally small) should be taxed, you 
would have been beyond the reach even of the suspicion of 
assisting class legislation, and no man could have charged 
that you wanted a law which would reach a large class of 
people of other sections of the country, and yet let you 
escape. Now, the Income Tax has been repudiated by the 
highest tribunal of the land, and those who contended for 
it stand as the discredited advocates of an unconstitutional 
measure. 

In a like manner, and I know in broaching this subject 
that I tread on dangerous ground, — in a like manner, I say, 
a great many of you are being badly advised and going 
wrong on money. Now, you will lose on that. Don't get 
mad because I tell you so; I am only speaking truth as I 
see it. It does seem to me that if there is any section of 
this whole country that could afford to be absolutely 
monometallists, and gold monometallists at that, the South 
is that section. Have you any silver mines ? Have you 
anything to sell that you cannot get gold for ? And has the 
amount of gold which you have heretofore gotten for what 
you sold ever been out of proportion to the quantity of other 
commodities which you could buy with that gold ? Is there 
any section of the country that raises any single product 
that will command as much gold even in the most depressed 
times, as the cotton crop of the South Do you not know 
that had it not been for this fact, the credit of the United 
States government could not have been maintained after tlie 
war. And yet there is all this talk about alliance with the 
West in order to secure free silver. Well, if you are going 
abroad to make any sectional alliance, in the name of 
Heaven lets make one in which there is some possibility of 
profit to you. You, the South ! with all your traditions, all 
your sacred memories, all your treasured stories, all your 
time-honored chivalry and heroism, all your blue-blooded 



12 

aristocracy, with a past so rich that the history of it reads 
like romance, and memory of it makes the blood quicken 
with pride. You! with this character, and with this record, 
to talk about allying yourself to a people who have no past, 
no history, no tradition, only a mushroom present and an 
unassured future. You ! who boast the most homogeneous 
people on the American continent, to join yourselves and 
your fortunes with a section that is the stronghold of 
anarchy and socialism ; you to ally yourselves to a people 
that have not much better sense of home and home-ties 
than the Arab in his tent, which he folds in the night and 
steals away. No ! If there is to be any alliance, let us 
make a marriag-e worthy of our bride. All this silver twad- 
dle is the veriest humbuggery. Do you know any process 
by which you are to immediately become enriched by the 
re-opening of the mints for unrestricted coinage of silver ? 
Has it never occurred to you that you cannot get any of 
those new silver dollars without giving a quid pro quo in 
exchange for them ; and then, who is advising you to adopt 
this propaganda as your financial deliverance ? Find me the 
strongest and best, the most intelligent and wisest six silver 
advocates that you know of in the South, and I will furnish 
you six names as worthy of trust as these and yet who 
vigorously dispute the wisdom of the silver policy. 

I don't ask you to believe that free silver coinage is 
unwise because I say so, but let us test the question by the 
testimony of witnesses. I can name six men who would be 
enough to convert me, if I had never thought on the sub- 
ject, or talked with any other man living but them ; I point 
you to six shining lights in the ranks of Democracy, with 
whom there has never been any variableness nor shadow of 
turning. I give you six men, all of whom have proven 
themselves competent in all respects to comprehend and 
judge any question of finance. They are not all Northerners 
nor all Southerners, but belong in equal nurnbers to the 
j:espective sections. 



13 

Do you know any better Democrat than Abram S. 
Hewitt, expert man of affairs, and profoundly learned 
statesman? He says: "Unrestricted coinage of silver would 
be luinous." 

Do you know any sounder Democrat than William C. 
Whitney, able in the counsels of the nation, wide in his 
experience on all economic questions, and learned in the 
mysteries of money? He says: "Free coinage of silver 
other than by fair international agreement, would be fatal 
to our national credit." 

Has not J. Edward Simmons, for twenty years one of 
the leading Democrats of New York city, and President of 
the Fourth National Bank, one of the largest financial insti- 
tutions of the metropolis — has he no claim upon your 
respectful attention? He says: "Unrestricted coinage of 
silver would put a chock under the wheels of this country's 
progress and result in such a shock to public credit that the 
consequences to all the material interests of the nation 
would be appalling." These are all Northerners. 

Do you know any better Democrat, any more conspic- 
uously successful man, any more prominent figure in the 
field of finance than R. T. Wilson? He says: "Unrestricted 
coinage of silver would blight all enterprise in the South, 
and be a relentless hindrance to the developments of its 
natural resources and general prosperity." 

Do you know anybody who doubts the Democracy of 
John H. Inman? He says: "That the free silver craze has 
been instituted by a few political tricksters and a few 
Western miners, the former greedy for office and the latter 
greedy for gain." 

Do you know why Samuel Spencer, born and reared in 
Columbus, Ga., and graduated from this very institution, a 
man standing today abreast with the foremost men of his 
profession, and managing the largest single property in 
the whole South ; do you know why he should not be trusted 



14 

as a man of truth, honesty and intelligence? He says! 
"This silver mania, if allowed to prevail, will prove the 
greatest engine for harm in the South that has ploughed 
that section since the war between the States devastated it." 

Now, there you have three Northerners and three 
Southerners, all prominent, all successful, and each and 
every single one of them having more pecuniary interest in 
the South today than any two silverites in the whole 
section. Is this worth nothing? Ah! but some fellow who 
is joined to his idol cries back at me, yes, but they are all 
bondholders, they are rich, they are gold bugs. Well, 
suppose they are; does that argue them incompetent to 
discuss monetary propositions or currency systems? 

Would you employ a man who had gone barefooted all 
his life to make your shoes, or engage a Zulu fresh from his 
native land to be your tailor? I believe silver agitation in 
the South comes in great measure from an opposition to the 
Administration, and that, in itself, ought to be enough to 
kill it. The man at the head of the Government today is 
the foremost living American and the only one the Demo- 
crats have ever been able to elect President since the war, 
and I fail to see where he has shown any lack of considera- 
tion, or given any evidence of prejudice against the 
Southern people. The presence of three Southerners in his 
Cabinet should be denial enough of any such insinuation. 

But I do not mean by pointing out these discouraging 
signs of the times to admit that I am hopeless; I believe the 
perfect day will come. My faith is not based on any light 
which I claim to see gliding the horizon at this very present 
time, but I believe it because I believe the sun will shine 
tomorrow. I believe it because I believe the rivers are 
going to run down from the mountains and empty them- 
selves into the ocean to the end of time. I believe it 
because I believe the mountains are firmly fixed in their 
foundations, and will stand forever as the everlasting hills. 



15 

1 believe it because I believe in the glory of God shining in 
the firmament, and the inevitable fulfilment of his every 
plan and purpose, and I believe that the making of this 
into the greatest people on earth and the making of this 
Government into the very best human government, is in the 
scope and contemplation of His Divine plan. 

Not long ago I heard the famous John I^. Stoddard lec- 
ture on Norway. The lecture was enriched by stereopticon 
illustrations. The charming story was emphasized by great 
pictures that brought everything almost in touch. After 
the speaker had carried us up through all those arms of the 
sea that press their way between the narrowly divided 
mountains, he finally threw a picture on the screen which 
put all previous ones to shame. The audience held its 
breath, and finally the lecturer said, "and now, my friends, 
here we stand at the great North Cape itself." The picture 
was grand. Behind that giant rock was the threshold of a 
continent, and before it was the vast Arctic Sea blushing 
beneath the warm glow of the midnight sun, which never 
sets, but pauses just above the horizon, as if to let the past 
embrace the present, and yesterday kiss today. But there 
came to my mind another picture, which if I had a lantern 
as faithful to my fancy as Stoddard's was to the wondrous 
sights he had seen, I would fling for you a picture on this 
great screen, and show you what I think I see in a not far 
distant day, when this great nation of God's people shall 
have been bound together, and been taught to live as 
brethren dwelling together in unity. I would have them 
all mustered together, camping out, as it were, in a great 
union of fellowship, betoking oneness of interest and one- 
ness of destiny, and above them that flag of flags, in which, 
by a strange coincidence, the story of the nation seems 
to have been caught in symbol, having, as it does, the red 
stripes, symbolic color of the blood of earth, and the blue 
above which is heaven's own color, and running between, 



16 

the virgin stripes of white, speaking of purity and peace; 
showing that this people will come together in spirit and 
truth, and in their unity will march forward from earth to 
God, singing loud hosannas. "Blessed is the people whose 
God is the I^ord." And then if out of the Milky Way of the 
white stripes there should shoot forth now and then some 
new star, it would be to magnify that great constellation in 
the firmament of nations, which will go on shining forever 
and forever, differing no more, "save as one star differeth 
from another star in glory." 




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